On “Seeing” Theatre in 2020

Blindness, a socially distanced sound installation at the Donmar Warehouse, London, UK, adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Walter Meierjohann from the novel by José Saramago, August 1– September 5, 2020.

Twenty-two pairs of seats sparsely fill the central stage space at the Donmar Warehouse, arranged so audience members sit in pairs, facing each other, the front of one seat aligned with the back of the other. Around the edge of the stage, pairs of chairs face inward in the same direction. As we enter the space, a green light illuminates one of the central seat pairs, which the face-masked usher directs us to. Further around the edges of the space, the Donmar’s maroon benches have been stacked, ever so slightly haphazardly, to make space for this new configuration of audiences.

Fittingly, our first return to on-site theatre since March is a dystopian revisit to the Donmar, where Lyndsey Turner’s production of Caryl Churchill’s Far Away had been our final pre-lockdown viewing. This recent production, an audio installation based on Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago’s Blindness, is suitably appropriate for these pandemic days, but must be contextualized by the eerie sense of return that surrounded the piece itself.

Walking across the bridge from the South Bank to Covent Garden on an unseasonably summery Friday night in August, the city didn’t quite have the feel of an apocalyptic ghost town, but on a day when London had been in the upper 90s Fahrenheit (high 30s Celsius) and was still over 90 degrees as we crossed the bridge, the scattered groups of people and many boarded up businesses that we passed reminded us that it was still not back to business as usual. We queued a distance behind a handful of other masked audience members (all attendees were required to wear masks for the duration of the visit) outside the Donmar for our 8:30 P.M. curtain, and three employees, each with a face shield and clipboard, processed us, pair by pair, checking ticket information and informing us about the show. Each waited until the next person had been sent inside before continuing, enforcing a natural social distancing. As we entered the lobby, we were told that there would be blackouts during the show and that there was a flashlight under each seat. If we needed to get out for any reason during the show, we should illuminate that light and raise a hand.

The lobby was stacked with boxes—some for the many headphones used in the production, some perhaps residual from the theatre’s disuse and hopeful for a return to normalcy; there was bottled water available to take (because of the heat), but no bar or program sellers (a digital program had been sent in advance, along with the ticket confirmation the night before). As we climbed the stairs to the stall entrance, taped X’s indicated the spikes on which we should stand until the person/people in front of us had advanced. As we reached the first floor, the usher asked if we needed to use the restroom, sending those who did in their pairs one way around the theatre and those who didn’t the other way, directly into the space. As we entered and walked toward our green-lit seats, we noticed that they were filling the theatre from the furthest corner inwards, so we didn’t come close to anyone as we entered the space. Audience members were seated only with those with whom they live (this was specified when booking tickets; people can come either in pairs or individually, and those who come solo are seated by themselves). Each pair of seats is situated in a rough grid, at least six feet on all sides from every other pair. We sat down facing each other, looking around the space at all the other masked patrons. Already, the return to theatre took on a different feeling, and there was a palpable rush of excitement as we all looked around at each other, wondering if we knew...